Are weekends counted as part of my annual leave days in the UAE?

Frustratingly, the company is likely within its rights by default. Under the UAE Labour Law, official holidays and rest days that fall during a period of annual leave are counted as part of that leave unless the employment contract or the employer's own regulations say otherwise. Annual leave is expressed in calendar days — thirty per completed year — not working days, so a break that spans a weekend can lawfully have those weekend days deducted from your balance. The place to look is your contract and the staff handbook: many employers grant leave in working days as a more generous term, and if yours does, HR must honour it, because agreed terms that improve on the law are binding. If the documents are silent, the calendar-day deduction stands. What you can do: read the leave clause carefully, ask HR in writing which rule they apply and where it is written, and plan future bookings so weekends sit at the edges rather than the middle. If your contract does promise working days and HR refuses to apply it, that is a contractual dispute you can escalate to MOHRE. A licensed UAE employment lawyer can quickly confirm which regime your wording creates.